12 December 2014

A few weeks ago, I got an email inviting me to the Sports & Activities Fair at Bristol Metropolitan School, not far from me down the cycle path. As I think it's important for Artemis BJJ to be a part of the community, I was happy to pop along today and do a demonstration for the students. Very fortunately for me, Chris was also happy to help out, so I had a demonstration partner. Cheers Chris! :)

We started off basically just doing what we normally do when we meet up for training, troubleshooting some technique. My goal was to see if I could play half guard around my injury. I can wrap one leg from the outside with my good leg, but that's not enough to hold a decent half guard. Tweaking their leg outwards helps, but to maintain the position I need to engage the other leg, which currently hurts.

So, I'm not sure half guard is the way to go, though I'll keep experimenting. I had a brief play with a knee shield to see if that helped. What I want to find is a position where I don't have to use the bits of my left leg that aren't working properly at the moment. Failing that, I can at least drill something that doesn't need my left leg to practice. The DVD I bought on Black Friday should hopefully help with that, Ryan Hall's new The Defensive Guard. I haven't had a chance to watch it properly yet, so will check it out in more depth over the weekend.

Chris wanted to keep practicing back escapes, which works well as I want to improve my back control. Although at the moment, that's another position that my injury makes difficult, so I can't offer up as much resistance as I'd like. Hopefully it's still useful, but there again I could do with isolating some position where I can hold it more firmly.

A few of the pupils were up for giving BJJ a try, though they weren't too keen on the mount. Understandable, as if you're a teenage boy, you're not going to be all that thrilled by the prospect of getting into physically close positions with your friends. They were much happier with throws: I went through a couple of those, as that felt like the safest thing. Normally my standard first class is either mount escapes or the RNC. However, I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to have adolescents running around trying to choke each other. ;)

[thanks Georgette!]Disclaimer:
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